ARTICLE EXTRAS

Four carved wooden panels from Japan’s pavilion at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition are together again after a 118-year journey that spanned Jackson Park, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the area underneath Soldier Field’s bleachers.

The Art Institute of Chicago is the new home to the four ramma, which were hung together in the museum’s Japanese Art Galleries earlier this month. The panels were originally the show-stopping centerpiece inside Phoenix Hall, Japan’s home at the 1893 exhibition that stood out among the expo’s “White City.”

In September 2010, the Art Institute sent all four panels to a restoration shop in Evanston where the ramma were cleaned, the birds’ beaks re-carved and all four were repainted to appear as if they had “aged gracefully,” Katz said.

“It was so complicated,” Katz said. “We’re not normally in the business of restoration. We’re normally in the business of conservation.”

The ramma were installed Aug. 1-2, all four panels together, on display for the first time in more than 60 years.

Now the numbers which are very simple....

20110802 is EXACTLY Leo (356) days from August 11th in the year 2010. August 11th is the Divine Birth of our Lord God Jesus Christ in 6 BC. Here in Chicago on August 11th sun begins the first full minute of light over the horizon of Lake Michigan begins at 5:54 am and ends at 5:55 am. 5:54 corresponds to "End" and 5:55 corresponds to "New". And like the rising phoenix at 5:56 am the disc of the sun is has completely risen over the water. 5:56 is the completion of the Leo (356th) minute of the New (555) day.